Archive

This part is going to be cen­tered on modern‐day Iran. Or, that ter­ri­to­ry that sits where ancient Persia used to sit. The great empire that chal­lenged Greece. The great empire that chal­lenged Rome, often extreme­ly suc­cess­ful­ly. The coun­try that freed the Hebrew slaves to return from Babylon. The coun­try that insti­tut­ed the first writ­ten char­ter of human rights to do with free reli­gious wor­ship.

We’re going to have a brief excur­sion to one ele­ment of what Fred Halliday would’ve called ​“cul­tur­al con­di­tions,” cul­tur­al thought that leads to rebel­lion. We’re going to have a look at lib­er­a­tion the­ol­o­gy, and what that has to say about rebel­lion.

From the 1960s onwards, there was a new phe­nom­e­non, or at least it was noticed as new at that point in time, which has been called ​“lib­er­a­tion the­ol­o­gy.” It began in Latin America. It began with Catholic priests want­i­ng to take a stand against injus­tice and cor­rup­tion, and par­tic­u­lar­ly on behalf of the poor­est cit­i­zens in Latin American coun­tries.